


The One You'll Know By

by Redrikki



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Amnesia, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-29 22:09:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19839499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: After losing his memory, Bruce asked Alfred not to tell him about his vigilante life, but he's beginning to think his butler left a few other things out. Like, say, his kids.





	The One You'll Know By

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the hurt-comfort bingo challenge "amnesia."
> 
> Takes place during Bruce's 2014 amnesia arc during _Superheavy_ and _Bloom_. I always wondered how in the heck Bruce managed to avoid ever learning about his kids. Was there a city-wide conspiracy not to mention them? Does he not know how to google? WTF comic writers?
> 
> Title comes from "Teach Your Children Well" by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

There is a boy who comes to the community center and watches through the fence. It’s obvious he doesn’t belong. He’s brown enough to blend in, but his clothes are all wrong. Instead of the usual jeans and a hoodie, he wears pressed polos and khakis creased sharp enough to cut. He’s well fed and well cared for, but his eyes are so hungry.

There is something familiar about his face. Not in the sense that Bruce has met him so much as that he has seen it somewhere before. In an old photograph, maybe, or a time-warped version of his mirror. But no. That’s crazy. Bruce Wayne doesn’t have kids. Alfred would have told him. There are things about his old life they have agreed not to talk about, but he would have told him about _this_. 

No, Bruce Wayne doesn’t have kids, but, sometimes, he watches the boy and wishes that he did.

Lucius Fox drops by the community center which bares his name for his quarterly visit. They’ve only met the once before that Bruce can actually remember, but Lucius treats him like an old friend, all backslaps and chumminess. He’s a businessman, but he works the room like a politician, chatting with each of the children and making appreciative noises about every piece of art put before him. At the budget meeting, he is apologetic. Bruce isn’t the only one who’s gone from obscenely rich to just regular rich thanks to the collapse of Wayne Enterprises and the center’s endowment isn’t what used to be. Lucius promises to try to scrounge up some money at least. What more can they ask for?

“How are your kids handling everything?” Lucius asks as Bruce sees him to his car.

“Surprisingly well, actually,” Bruce says and launches into a quick rundown on each of the kids he’s worked with. 

All of them have lost somebody: a parent, a sibling, a friend. Some of them, like poor Duke Thomas, have lost everyone. About a quarter of them are still living in temporary FEMA housing even all these months on, and it’s looking less and less likely that they’ll ever get back in their old homes. By all rights, these kids should be complete and utter messes, but they’re not. Unlike the man Bruce used to be, they refuse to let their trauma and grief consume their lives to become their defining feature. They come every day and find joy and hope and beauty. They're amazing and resilient and Bruce could not be prouder than if really were his kids.

Lucius frowns slightly as he listens, his brow wrinkled in confusion. “Right,” he says slowly once Bruce winds down. “That’s—” he shakes his head “—not the answer I was expecting, but I’m glad the kids here are doing well. Take care of yourself.” He claps Bruce on the shoulder, hops in his car, and drives off.

He leaves confusion in his wake. Not the answer he was expecting? What’s that supposed to mean? Bruce feels like he’s some how answered the wrong question, but what other kids could Lucius possibly be talking about? He thinks, suddenly, of the hungry-eyed boy. Where are _his_ parents? How is _he_ coping? The cool evening air cuts through his jacket and he shivers as Lucius’s tail lights are lost in the glow of the city.

Bruce can’t sleep, so he comes in early to fix the broken AC unit and ends up finding Duke Thomas trying to patch himself up in one of the storerooms. He’s got a long gash across his right forearm and a nasty bruise on his temple. If it was anyone else, Bruce would be calling the police to report a mugging, but the kid’s still wearing his Robin colors. He can’t call this in without getting Duke arrested for breaking the Robin Laws. He just sighs instead, and takes over cleaning the wound.

They don’t talk as Bruce works, swabbing and bandaging Duke’s arm. The kid barely tolerates his presence on a good day and, for the life of him, Bruce can not figure out why. Duke’s a good kid. Smart, but angry and constantly in trouble since his parents joined the missing after Joker’s Endgame. His precisely the sort of boy Bruce wants to help, so why won’t Duke let him?

“Why don’t you like me?” Bruce asks quietly as he puts the finishing touches on the bandage. 

“Seriously?” Duke asks, incredulous. “You used to be out there _saving_ people,” he says, his voice breaking. “This city _needs_ you and you’re just sit around here pretending you aren’t—”

“Don’t,” Bruce warns him before he can say it. He’s not supposed to know. _Bruce_ isn’t supposed to know. The old Bruce Wayne who lived his life consumed by his grief is gone. He died in a cave and he doesn’t get to come back. Not when this Bruce, the new Bruce, is happy. Not when he’s found ways to help people that don’t come at the expense of his health and sanity.

“That man is dead,” Bruce says in a low, dangerous growl his voice slides into far too easily, “and you’re going to get yourself killed too if you keep this up,” he adds, gesturing to the Robin outfit. 

Sure, it looks cool, but it doesn’t even have any body armor. Doesn’t Duke understand how dangerous it is? Kids have died doing it; been blown up, beaten up, shot, stabbed. Duke’s a smart boy with so much to give. He doesn’t deserve to go out like that. 

“You can’t tell me this is what your parents wanted for you.”

“Oh, screw you, man!” Duke yanks his arm away. “You haven’t done shit to help me find my folks. You don’t get to talk about them.” He shoves past Bruce on the way to the door then turns just as he reaches it. “You wanna peddle that fatherly advice crap to someone? Try your own damn kids.” Parting shot delivered, he slams the door shut behind him.

“But I don’t have kids,” Bruce tells the empty room. What does Duke know anyway, aside from his deepest, darkest secret? Bruce has been telling himself for months he doesn’t have a family, but it’s starting to feel like he’s lying.

Everyone says Batman was a great detective, but the new Bruce isn’t. He doesn’t want to be, but the clues just keep adding up until he can’t ignore them any more. He googles it. He has four children. Richard Grayson. Jason Todd. Timothy Drake. Damian Wayne. One was outed as the vigilante Nightwing. Two are dead. No one has any clue where the others are. How did he not know this? What the hell kind of father is he?

“Where are they?!” Bruce roars as he sweeps the mound of useless documents from the desk to the floor.

Alfred winces. “Sir, if I may,” he hurriedly steps in to keep Bruce from making an even bigger mess of the previously tidy study, “what are you looking for?”

“My kids,” Bruce snarls. He had trusted this man implicitly, but he’s beginning to wonder why. What have the butler’s lies and secrets cost Bruce and his children? How much time have they lost? 

His oldest two boys are dead, but the youngest have to be around somewhere. Boarding school would be alright, Bruce could live with that, but this house should be full of evidence of their lives. Where are their things? Where are the adoption papers, the birth certificates, the report cards? There should be pictures at the very least, on this desk, lining the halls, in his bedroom, but there’s nothing. It is as though his children have been carefully edited from his life and somehow he failed to notice. 

The old man wilts under the force of Bruce’s anger. “I am so sorry, Master Bruce. When you said you wanted to distance yourself from your old life, I thought—”

“I meant _that_ ," Bruce gestures angrily toward the clock and the secrets behind it. “Just because I don’t want to dress up as a bat and beat criminals doesn’t mean I didn’t want to be a father.” He’s yelling, looming. Something undefinable flickers in Alfred’s eyes, but Bruce can’t bring himself to care. “Why did you let me think my whole life was the mission?”

“Because it was!” Alfred yells back, his chest heaving. “The boys aren’t just your children, they’re your _Robins_.” He makes a visible effort to calm himself down. “They’re your Robins and they chose to respect your wishes,” he says once he’s got himself back under control. “You asked for this.”

“I—” 

The truth hits like a baseball bat to the chest. For a long moment it is all he can do to stand and breath. The new Bruce Wayne has inadvertently abandoned the boys the old one trained as soldiers. He leaves without another word. He asked for this and there is nothing more to say.

The boy with hungry eyes and the time-warped mirror face is back. He wouldn’t be here if he didn’t want his father. Bruce takes a deep breath, girds his loins, and goes out to meet his son.


End file.
